Ben Saul Attempts To Whitewash $150,000 From China

UN press conference, Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights while countering terrorism, was questioned about his ties to China. The questions followed a UN Watch report revealing that China had contributed $150,000 to his mandate in 2024, as documented in the UN’s 2024 Special Procedures Facts & Figures report, as well as allegations concerning his close personal ties to a Chinese Communist Party official.

Saul’s claims in response raise several questions which are examined below:

1. Did the $150,000 come from China’s regular contribution to the UN budget? Was it simply a routine contribution by a UN Member State?

Saul initially suggested that China’s $150,000 contribution was part of its ordinary funding of the United Nations. He emphasized that China is “the second largest contributor to the United Nations budget,” adding that “of course” it funds “United Nations mechanisms, including the human rights system.” He also described the funds as “an allocation which goes to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.”

However, the $150,000 did not come from China’s assessed contributions to the UN regular budget. It was a separate, voluntary contribution specifically earmarked for Saul’s mandate.

Moreover, Saul subsequently contradicted his own suggestion that China’s contribution was part of its ordinary UN funding, asserting that his “mandate and many others get no UN regular budget funding.” Not only did this undercut his earlier explanation, but the assertion itself was false. As OHCHR’s own website makes clear, Special Procedures mandates do receive support from the UN regular budget for various activities, including travel to Geneva and New York to present reports to the Human Rights Council and General Assembly, participation in annual meetings, country visits, and other mandated activities.

This regular-budget support is provided through the UN system and is not separately reported as voluntary contributions in the annual Special Procedures Facts & Figures reports.

Thus, Saul’s explanation was misleading in two respects. First, by invoking China’s status as a major contributor to the UN budget, he obscured the distinction between its mandatory contributions and its separate, earmarked funding of his mandate. Second, his categorical assertion that his mandate receives “no UN regular budget funding” ignored the regular-budget support that OHCHR itself identifies as available to Special Procedures.

2. Was the $150,000 nevertheless part of China’s routine UN contributions?

Saul portrayed China’s contribution as entirely routine, stating that “there is nothing unusual or untoward about that” and noting that his “mandate also gets some contributions from Spain and Switzerland.”

It is true that Special Procedures mandates rely in part on voluntary contributions from Member States. As OHCHR explains, the UN’s regular budget is insufficient to cover all mandate activities, making additional voluntary contributions necessary under the current system.

OHCHR further states that these contributions are “received by OHCHR,” are “strictly governed by UN financial rules, policies and oversight mechanisms,” and “do not give donors any role in the appointment, direction, priorities, findings or conclusions of mandate holders.” This is consistent with Saul’s assertion that the Chinese funds were channeled through OHCHR in Geneva and that China has no direct control over their expenditure.

However, the fact that voluntary contributions are permitted under UN rules does not mean that China’s contribution to Saul’s mandate was routine.

First, China is not among OHCHR’s leading voluntary contributors. In 2024, China contributed  $4 million in voluntary funding, ranking 18th among donors. Yet despite its relatively modest overall contributions, China chose to earmark $150,000 specifically for Saul’s mandate.

Second, China’s contribution was earmarked for Saul’s particular mandate rather than provided as general support for the Special Procedures system. OHCHR distinguishes between earmarked and unearmarked voluntary contributions. Significantly, in Resolution 16/21, the Human Rights Council welcomed additional voluntary contributions while expressly emphasizing that such contributions should be, to the extent possible, unearmarked.

Third, China’s earmarked funding of Special Procedures has been highly selective. According to UN Watch’s Special Procedures Funding Database, between 2017 and 2025, China contributed a total of $2,249,979 in earmarked funding to just seven of the more than 55 Special Procedures mandates. 

The pattern of funding is noteworthy. China has directed substantial earmarked contributions to a small group of mandates, including several whose work impacts China’s domestic issues and foreign policy positions. Most notably, more than $1 million went to the Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, a mandate focused on condemning sanctions and other measures imposed by Western governments.

Ben Saul is also the only Special Rapporteur on human rights while countering terrorism identified in the database as having received earmarked funding from China.

Saul’s observation that Spain and Switzerland also contribute to his mandate does not address the central issue. China is not a leading voluntary donor to OHCHR, yet it specifically selected Saul’s mandate for a $150,000 earmarked contribution. The question is not whether China is permitted to contribute to the UN human rights system, but why it chose to fund this particular mandate rather than support the Special Procedures system generally.

3. Does China’s lack of formal control rule out influence? And has Saul criticized China “on many occasions”?

Saul emphatically asserted that China does not have “any control over the way that money is spent.” OHCHR similarly states that voluntary contributions are governed by “UN financial rules, policies and oversight mechanisms” that do not give donors “any role in the appointment, direction, priorities, findings or conclusions of mandate holders.”

However, the absence of formal donor control does not preclude indirect influence over a mandate-holder’s priorities and agenda.

A study published by the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), based on interviews with mandate-holders conducted between 2015 and 2019, documented concerns about the influence of voluntary funding on the work of UN human rights experts. The study quoted a former chair of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures, who warned that donor funding could shape experts’ agendas. The report also noted that several experts described funding arrangements in which financial support was conditional upon undertaking specific projects related to their mandates (pp. 37-38).

These findings illustrate why compliance with UN financial rules does not, by itself, resolve concerns about the potential influence of earmarked funding. 

Saul also asserted that China’s contribution “goes simply to funding the staff that support my mandate in Geneva and New York.” However, he provided no supporting documentation and the 2024 Facts & Figures Report does not establish how the $150,000 was ultimately spent. Even accepting his explanation, the use of the funds for staffing would not, in itself, resolve questions about the potential influence of earmarked funding on a mandate-holder’s priorities.

Saul further claimed that he has “criticized China on many occasions,” citing his work on Xinjiang, Hong Kong’s National Security Law, and the prosecution of Jimmy Lai.

Yet his record is more limited than his broad assurances suggest. Saul has not dedicated a single report or country visit to China and has not issued a standalone public statement specifically addressing China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. Although his 2025 General Assembly report briefly addressed the situation in Xinjiang, it did so within a broader thematic report on administrative counterterrorism measures. 

Regarding Hong Kong, Saul co-drafted a Special Procedures assessment of the National Security Law, issued a communication to China, and co-signed a statement concerning Jimmy Lai’s conviction. These limited interventions fall far short of demonstrating sustained scrutiny of China’s counterterrorism practices. Most notably, Saul has devoted little documented attention to China’s treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, where sweeping counterterrorism and extremism policies have been used to justify mass detention and other serious human rights violations. These abuses fall squarely within his mandate, yet his principal example of addressing them is a brief reference in a broader thematic report.

Saul’s public commentary on China has also been remarkably sparse. Searches of his X account reveal no posts mentioning China since 2024, no posts concerning Xinjiang since he assumed his UN mandate, and only a handful of posts about Jimmy Lai. This thin public record stands in stark contrast to his assertion that he has criticized China “on many occasions.”

Moreover, Saul has taught at the Xiamen Academy of International Law in China, an institution affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, and has close personal ties to a Chinese Communist Party official, as documented in a published investigation. These connections are particularly significant given China’s decision to earmark $150,000 specifically for his mandate.

Taken together, China’s selective financial support, Saul’s personal and professional connections to China, and his sparse criticism of its counterterrorism practices raise serious concerns about the independence and impartiality of his mandate that his assurances of freedom from Chinese influence do nothing to dispel.

4. Is scrutiny of China’s earmarked funding of Saul’s mandate legitimate, or is it a “smear campaign”?

Rather than addressing the substantive concerns raised by UN Watch’s findings, Saul attacked his critics, accusing “people who think that Israel and the United States should never be criticized” of conducting a “smear campaign” against him and other UN mandate-holders. Although he did not name UN Watch, his remarks appear directed at the organization following its disclosure of China’s $150,000 contribution to his mandate.

This accusation is a diversion from the issue at hand. Whether UN experts criticize Israel or the United States has no bearing on the legitimacy of examining their financial relationships with governments. The issue is the independence and impartiality of UN human rights experts.

Moreover, concerns about earmarked funding are neither new nor unique to UN Watch. The Human Rights Council itself recognized the importance of limiting earmarked funding in Resolution 16/21, which expressly emphasized that voluntary contributions should, to the extent possible, be unearmarked. 

The UN Board of Auditors also warned about the risks of financial arrangements involving individual mandate-holders and specific public or private donors. It expressed concern that earmarked funding could privilege certain mandates over others and recommended finding “ways to reduce the reliance of mandate holders on extrabudgetary funding” and ensuring that mandated activities were “not unduly influenced by the source of funds.” These concerns were subsequently examined in the ECLJ’s report, which documented the potential influence of voluntary funding on mandate-holders’ priorities and agendas.

Far from constituting a smear campaign, scrutiny of China’s earmarked contribution to Saul’s mandate addresses precisely the concerns identified by the UN’s own oversight mechanisms. The independence of UN human rights experts cannot rest solely on their own assurances of impartiality, but requires transparency, accountability, and freedom from actual or apparent donor influence. Such scrutiny is essential to safeguarding the independence and credibility of the UN human rights system.